yeah, no, and fuck you

[seperis]

Really.

On behalf of those of us who were and are single women on welfare with children in the South and at some point in our lives lived in a--I need to check the wording--"rural south USA in a welfare slum trailer"--and who do not think our population should be fodder for your smug little war on the word shack:

Fuck. You.

Are you fucking serious?

Are you comparing lower income women's lives--and since you used the word 'welfare', we all know you're talking about women, who make up the majority of welfare clients; women, whose choices and lives are limited by poverty and the difficulties raising children alone, without spousal support; poor urban women, a population that is statistically more likely to be battered by their male partner--to a fucking challenge using the word shack?

I suppose indywind felt it was 'problematic' to use the term 'trailer trash'; should I be grateful? Thank you. Your buddies in that thread who were so excited to read it--and that super clever "Now them's fightin' words!!!" jab--also have my abject gratitude that parts of my life--and my family, friends, and clients from when I was a caseworker who decided benefits for those renters of "rural south USA in a welfare slum trailer"--are being held up in humourous example of how southern poverty is totally like using the word shack. I feel as if social justice is on my side.

So, my night is shit. How's everyone else doing?

Comments

[scrollgirl]

Okay, maybe I'm out of line here, but I thought staranise's original post had a good point. I really don't think indywind should have made a joke about it, but I feel the comparison is still a good one--that the state of poverty among a lot of the First Nations is very similar to women living in poverty in the rural south. And if one's not okay, the other's not okay either. (Which... yeah, indywind shouldn't have made a joke about it. I wouldn't have made a joke about how badly Attawapiskat residents have it.) Like staranise says, it's insulting to use other people's poverty for a meme about middle-class to wealthy white men who swing by for blanket-sex and then leave again? I mean, I don't know due South fandom--I have to imagine that was never the intention. It's really just a shorthand for "isolated place, cuddling for warmth, blanket-sex" but, well, I don't get the sense that the majority of dS fandom really paid attention to what actually happens among aboriginal populations in rural Canada.

[scrollgirl]

Okay, maybe I'm misunderstanding something here. Aren't most Canadian shack stories about two guys huddling in an actual-fact shack? Not in comfy cabins? I thought the whole isolated, roughing it, survivor aspect was part of the meme.

[minim_calibre]

Yes. Actual-fact shacks, in remote locations, not usually used for habitation. Pref. drafty.

Serving the same narrative purpose as the gamekeeper or poacher's shacks in Regency romances, where they have to huddle together to keep warm, and sharing their naked body warmth leads to sex. It's an ancient trope, really.

[scrollgirl]

Oh, good, thanks for the clarification! I was a bit confused with all the references to cottages and cabins...

[minim_calibre]

It is also worth noting that when the first challenge ran, a decade ago, the First Nations housing crisis in question wasn't what it now is, and certainly not what you'd get near the top of a web search. (Because conditions always have to get to horrific before people pay attention.)

So it is a far, far less ingrained association than the example used. (dueSouth starts in a fictional fantasy Northwest Territories, to be pedantic, and thus has its own set of issues at play.)

[green_grrl]

Yes, this. The Canadian Shack of fiction IS actually a rough wood building in the middle of the wilderness with no indoor plumbing and a stove for heat. As seen on the produced-by-Canadians show Due South. Somehow calling a shack a shack is offensive enough to start dissing Southern US rural women and their families ....

[scrollgirl]

What indywind said was completely out of line and undefenceable.

I addressed the "shack" thing a little over on the LJ version of this post. That said, I don't think the fic challenge is actually *about* First Nations poverty.

[seperis]

...I understand what you're saying, but nothing defends indywind's comment. I wish you wouldn't attempt to set this up as a defensible comment because of the original post. In no context is it appropriate.

[scrollgirl]

I apologise, I wasn't trying to defend indywind saying what she said.

[seperis]

I didn't think you were directly, but even with context, indywind's little aside was horrible.

[scrollgirl]

I don't think *that*, but that was the example used.

[seperis]

Yeah, but that specific example in itself was problematic; southern poverty is a trope that's is more 'stereotypical' and more prevalent in offensive stereotypes of the south and of poverty. The entire clever challenge is literally stacking offensive stereotypes that are considered 'humorous'. So it's not just offensive; it's a very specific type of offensive that also can imply 'welfare queen' and it goes on and on and on. I grew up being called trailer trash and listening to the poor southern stereotypes, so it's fairly personal to me.

[minim_calibre]

It was bad enough before slum got thrown in there. Slum was the icing on the offensive cake, with all its cheerful implications that the people living there are lazy slobs wallowing in their own poverty.

[scrollgirl]

No, you're right, that comment just piled on more and more offensiveness--especially because it was a targeted comment. (The fic challenge isn't actually *about* First Nations poverty.) And there's no real point in trying to compare poverty in the south to First Nations poverty and the racism and stereotyping they face. I mean, in a way I was making a comparison? I didn't want to have it lost in the confusion that this *is* how the First Nations are treated. And that what "welfare queen" means to an American might be different from what it means to a Canadian. But neither do I want to make it a competition of who has it the worse off.

But I'm going to stop talking now, especially since I'm not First Nations myself, so I don't know what it's like to live that experience and I'm definitely talking out my depth now.